Everyone has their “rules” they follow and all of them seem to be aimed at stemming the rising tide of support building for the Bush-Natvig ticket.

Apparently, being an official write-in candidate in Kansas isn’t enough to get a lectern on the debate stage. Me and the 14 other people in the Green Party, Constitution Party, Socialist Party, Libertarian Party and the Birthday Party – that’s our party affiliation – were denied a chance to share our views Wednesday night. Romney and Obama get all of the money and attention and all of the other legitimate candidates are relegated to watching Wolf Blitzer on CNN.

After being denied a spot in the debates, Bush-Natvig 2012 was robbed in the Augusta Homecoming Parade. Apparently, only “floats” were considered for judging.

The Windstar was manned and we went in. Our families walked alongside and handed out candy. We felt like the very epitome of a float.

My older son even made sure he went up on the judges stand and gave them some candy. What does an 8-year old have to do to bribe a judge these days? If Smarties don’t get votes anymore, what does that say about what Barack Obama has done to unravel the very fabric of small-town America?

No wonder I was the only Presidential candidate in the parade!

But the parade was a lot of fun for us.

A lot of people we knew and didn’t know were waving and laughing at our fun “non-float” entry. It was a gorgeous morning and seeing the streets crowded with parade fans was great.

But some of you looked at us like running for President and Vice President makes us crazy.

We aren’t crazy.

Well before the debate system and homecoming parade rules were instituted to work against our candidacy, the Electoral College has been insuring that American voting strength would be redistributed to favor smaller states.

If you live in Texas, you get one electoral vote for every 661,470 people. In Wyoming, it only takes 168,845 people to qualify for an electoral vote. So a vote for President in Texas is only worth about 25 percent of a vote in Wyoming.

That is crazy.

It is also crazy to waste your time voting for President if you live in one of the 41 non-swing states. Your votes are already counted. As soon as the polls close on Nov. 6, your electoral votes will be given to the candidates who already know they have them in their pockets.

But you have every intention of wasting a half hour of your life to go vote for Mitt Romney because he is a Republican. Some of you will do something even more shocking and vote to re-elect Barack Obama.

Page 2 of 2 - Who is crazy here?

Thanks to the winner-take-all Electoral College, Romney already has Kansas’ six electoral votes. And you’re going to waste that half hour voting anyway.

Here’s a tip. If you want to waste half an hour, watch any episode of The Office since Steve Carrell left the cast.

If you want to waste your vote and maybe - just maybe - change this ridiculous, antiquated, intentionally unfair system we use to elect our President, write in Bush-Natvig for President.

Kent Bush is the Augusta Gazette Publisher, a columnist and blogger for the GateHouse Media Network. He can be contacted at publisher@augustagazette.com.